By Bern Mulvey
Cleveland State University Press, Cleveland 2008
Tamura-cho (a small village in Fukui Prefecture) is the setting for The Fat Sheep Everyone Wants, poems that touch on identity, assimilation, conflict, death, forgiveness, and redemption. The title refers to the original ideographs (fat and sheep) that make up the modern Japanese character for beauty. This is [...]
Archive for the ‘Poetry’ Category
The Fat Sheep Everyone Wants
Posted in Poetry on December 5, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia, and beyond
Posted in Asia, Middle East, Poetry on August 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Edited by: Tina Chang, Nathalie Handal, and Ravi ShankarV.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2008
This ambitious yet accessible gathering of hundreds of poets from various parts of Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, America, and elsewhere is likely to excite poetry fans as well as those new to poetry. Divided into nine idiosyncratic sections—with titles like [...]
The Steel Veil
Posted in Middle East, Poetry on August 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
By Jack MarshallCoffee House Press, 2008
Jack Marshall’s new poems wed depictions of Middle Eastern widows “behind veils heavy / as the steel / veil of empire” with expressions of personal grief and political outrage. Marshall’s distinctive voice and elegant lyrics unite this multilayered collection.
Born in 1936 to Jewish parents who emigrated from Iraq and Syria, [...]
America & Other Poems
Posted in Asia, Japan, Poetry on August 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
By Ayukawa Nobuo, selected and translated by Shogo Oketani and Leza LowitzKaya Press, 2008
America and Other Poems is the first English translation of a single volume by the Japanese Modernist poet, Nobuo Ayukawa. One of Japan’s most influential yet overlooked poets, Ayukawa was an important voice for peace and probity in the years that followed [...]
Wild Form & Savage Grammar
Posted in Asia, Natural History, Poetry, South Asia on August 15, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
By Andrew Schelling
La Alameda Press, 2003.
These essays are reports from an increasingly important crossroads where art and ecology meet. Andrew Schelling belongs, in the words of Patrick Pritchett, “to a small group of poets who are actively engaged with the rhythms and pulses of the natural world.” He is also the preeminent translator into English [...]
Azaleas: Poems by Kim Sowol, Translated by David R. McCann
Posted in Asia, Korea, Poetry on May 19, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
By Kim Sowol
Translated by David R. McCann
Columbia University Press, 2007.
Originally published in 1925, Azaleas is the only collection produced by Kim Sowol (1902-1934), yet he remains one of Korea’s most beloved and well-known poets. Thanks to the elegant translations by David R. McCann, this landmark of Korean literature is now able to speak to people [...]
